Open Discussion

Caterpillar, butterflies, moths, and all creatures great and small,

Here’s hoping that everyone had a safe and restful weekend.

A huge thank you to our new followers, first-time commenters, and visitors who waved “Hi” by clicking “like.”

Tidbits:

47-year-old disabled veteran Douglas Dendinger served a summons on Bogalusa police officer Chad Cassard in a police brutality lawsuit. The District Attorney charged Dendinger with simple battery, obstruction of justice and intimidating a witness. They produced more than 7 witnesses who testified, among other things, that Dendinger shoved and punched Cassard. It’s a good thing that his wife and nephew filmed him to prove that he served the court papers, because that film exonerated Dendinger of all charges.

Nina Pham, the nurse who contracted Ebola when caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, has filed a lawsuit against Texas Health Resources. Pham said that “the hospital’s lack of training and proper equipment and violations of her privacy made her “a symbol of corporate neglect — a casualty of a hospital system’s failure to prepare for a known and impending medical crisis.”

Another unarmed man was killed yesterday in Los Angeles.

City officials have ruled that 12-year old Tamir Rice caused his own death.

The Secret Service has arrested two people for breaching White House security. The presidential residence was placed on a brief lock down.

The New York Times reports that the DOJ has concluded that the Ferguson Police Department is racially bias, and Ferguson officials will face a lawsuit on civil-rights charges or work to negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department.

Today, I am struggling against a feeling of hopelessness. So badly, our nation needs to wake-up and learn the Golden Rule, to respect life, and stop the hate.

The following video is not the best quality, but the song is one of favorites to listen to when my mood is low.

You know, I look to the most common of common sense in things, and it seems to me that since Tamir didn’t shoot the man who made the 911 call, that the cops should have relied on their bullet proof vests for a few more seconds before shooting the kid.

But at least now we know. If a cop pulls up while you’re sitting on the playground, it’s hands up, don’t shoot.

I would still like to see an explanation for a couple of things with Tamir…1. why didn’t the dispatcher relay the “toy” and minor comments to the responders. 2. Why did the driver pull up right next to a potential shooter? By pulling up within feet of Tamir they didn’t give themselves any response time. That driver (officer) also put the shooter of Tamir into a severe situation when he did what he did.

I’m wondering when they turned over their recording……..did the first prosecutor have it or was it only turned over when another office took over the case. Either way they need to do a house cleaning in that city. Only one of the DA’s who lied has resigned and the other is still working. I hope that that do file charges against all those involved.

I know just what you are talking about, Xena. It is hard not to be discouraged with all the unjustified killings and cruel beatings that are not prosecuted properly. I just haven’t been able to believe all the obstacles that get thrown in the way to prevent fairness and justice! So many avenues and doors for redressing wrongs are blocked.

Sometimes I feel that the result of some of my advocating doesn’t lead anywhere….like I am just spinning my wheels. I feel that way today, and so I am going to take a break and just organized my recycled wool for sewing projects.

I love the song you posted for us, my friend. Today, I am stepping back today from all of these issues that I care so much about and just do restful basting of the wool if I get beyond organizing it.

For me it helps when I realize when to jump into issues and when to step out and away from them for a time.

And, soooo 🙂 my song today is the “Hokey-Pokey”

The Hokey Pokey

You put your right hand in,
You put your right hand out,
You put your right hand in,
And you shake it all about,

You do the hokey pokey
and you turn yourself around
That what it’s all about.

I and my grand daughter love doing the hokey pokey. These series of negative news can become very depressing because those who care feel like they are just putting their finger in a dyke which keeps threatening to drown us. This is why I am an intermittent blogger. Sometimes, you just need to concentrate on something else like taking a trip to Italy.

This one involves a traffic stop in which drugs are found and while searching the video a cop finds an engagement ring. You can hear the cop comment about it and then it isn’t entered into the property statement and the ring has gone missing. The cop fails who mentions the ring fails the lie detector test and nothing is done. smh

Dear Towerflower, You are forgetting that you are dealing with the State of Florida where nothing needs to make sense. This is the state which 1st enacted SYG law in 2005.This is the state that placed Marissa Alexander behind bars for 20 years for firing a gun in the air without hurting anyone because she wanted to scare away her uninvited ex spouse who was supposed to abide by a restraining order due to past abuse. Her defense attorney foolishly believed that his client would prevail because of her affirmative defense of SYG. She is out of jail now because of a lot outside pressure in the form of negative media commentaries, petitions etc.

Gronda…..You don’t have to tell me about Fl because I live here. As to Mrs. Alexander you don’t know everything about the case. She didn’t fire it into the air, which is the popular belief….she fired it at head level at her husband while his two children were standing by him. The bullet only defected into the ceiling after it passed through the wall. It was also her husband’s home, not hers. Yes they both had a mutual no contact order which they both violated and even had a child together during the time the order was in effect. She lost on the SYG because she went by 2 means of exit, went into the garage and retrieved a gun and returned to the inside of the home. She used the excuse that the garage door was broken but detectives found nothing wrong with the door. The SYG law does not protect a person who retrieves a firearm and returns to the conflict. She continued to see her husband and even assaulted him at one point while she was out on bail. She turned down the first plea deal of 3 yrs and lost at the trial. Even on appeal the court upheld the original SYG ruling but granted a new trial due to bad jury instructions.

I didn’t agree with Corey’s new charges of tacking on an additional 20 yrs each for the children, I felt she should have had the same charges she originally faced. Yes, the publicity surrounding the new trial helped her and she was reoffered the original plea deal she had first turned down.

Michael Giles is an entirely different case. I felt he would have won a SYG hearing but after telling his client that they would pursue the case he dropped it the day of the hearing. Even the person that Giles shot in the leg didn’t blame him, saying he felt it was justified since he was going to go after the first person he encountered.

But one of the things I have told people on this blog is that it isn’t the SYG law that is to blame for these outrageous sentences it is another law here in this state called 10-20-Life. Show a gun and get 10 years, fire a gun and get 20 years, and hit a person with a bullet or kill them and you face Life (or 25 yrs minimum). With the Giles case because the bullet he fired struck someone, he was sentenced to 25 yrs. The judges have their hands tied with sentencing here and have no choice to give a lighter sentence even if a situation would warrant it. There was even one judge who left the bench after one such case because he disagreed with the law.

I stand corrected on the Marissa Alexander case. You are right that I was not aware of all the details. I am aware of the 10-20-life gun laws that has been ruining lives as in another vet, Ronald Thompson. When I blog on these issues, I have been asking for the elimination of the 10-20-life rule. I have also been asking for modification of the SYG law. Google: Ronald Thompson – Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

There was an amendment offered by one member of the task force assigned by Governor Scott to review SYG law, which was not accepted. In the final 44 page task force report in the appendix, there is a letter written by Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle. Ms. Fernandez-Rundle recommends amending with one extra condition the law’s language that says a person has “no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.” That person claiming the right to stand his or her ground has to be the person “who does not initially provoke the force.” In other words, you can’t initiate a confrontation, and then kill somebody because that person fought back and was causing you “great bodily harm.”

The task force recommendations have been just words because nothing has been done based on it.

The SYG law was extended to cover someone firing a warning shot sometime last summer 2014. This is an improvement as it was putting a black eye on the State of Florida especially when the concept as per the previous laws, was that someone might consider it better to kill someone rather than to just firing a warning shot. However the 10-20-life gun law still exists. I would rather not have this law in the books, period.

I respectfully disagree with the existence of the SYG law as it currently stands. I truly believe that the SYG law requires at a minimum, some modification.

I had wondered about this also. Based on towerflower comments on the Marissa Alexander case where she didn’t even prevail on appeal in part, is because she left the scene and then returned with the gun to confront her ex spouse. I did not blog on her case but I did on Michael Giles. He also left the scene that that was chaotic, went to his car to return to the scene with the gun. He was looking for his 2 friends which had been separated from himself. Still this might explain why the SYG defense was not used.

It sounded like the entire scene was chaotic, yes he originally went to his car hoping his friends were there and at that point I believed he armed himself but I’m unsure if he did it then or was already armed. He then looked for his friends to leave but not encounter the chaos. His intentions were different than others who return to continue a fight. Unfortunately the chaos found him and he was even struck at one point. I would have thought the testimony of the person who was shot in the leg would have freed him but it seemed to have zero impact. Even the judge in his case said he didn’t agree with the sentence he was forced to impose.

You are right that the judge did not want to apply the law in this case. There was a probation officer who was recommending probation. Airman Giles intent was different and in my prior blogs, I argue this. There is such a thing as prosecutorial discretion and common sense. I do not feel any safer with someone like Airman Giles behind bars. He is one of our heroes and he deserved better treatment from the State of Florida. However, the facts are that he went to get his gun which means he had prior knowledge that the situation was dangerous when he returned to the scene of chaos. It makes sense to me that he would return to collect his friends but the prosecutor would argue that he could have waited in the car for his friends. Technically, he had other options. I just wished the state argued this as well in the GZ case. These laws are not equitably implemented. When Airman Giles shot his attacker in the leg, his goose was cooked because of this 10-20-life gun law which does tie the hands of a judge. He probably was barred from the SYG law because he exited the area without a gun but then he returned with the gun and shot someone in self defense. Even this is factually murky because most of the accounts that I have read report that he shot a warning shot in the air, so he is just lucky that he hit is attacker in the leg. Some of the accounts that I have read indicate that gun fragments injured 2 other guests. I do not know if the State was able to prove this because he was only charged for shooting his attacker. There were other gun shots fired that evening. So, you now know why I do not want the 10-20-life gun laws on the books.

Gronda…..It was up to the defense to ask for the SYG hearing and the lawyer changed his mind the night before so it never went to a stage to see if he would or would not have gotten it.

From what I understand…if memory serves me right….was that, yes, two others received wounds from gunshots but they couldn’t match it to the gun that Giles used so he was never charged with those.

The 10-20-Life existed before SYG and it was the State’s attempt at gun control. When it was first written into law there was a spike into gun usage and crime so they thought that stiff sentences would make people think twice before they used a gun in a commission of a crime. Problem is that it is written in such a way that a judge cannot use their discretion when they feel it is warranted. I agree that the law stinks and that the State’s SYG law could also use a tweaking.

Why Airman Giles’ attorney changed his strategy at the last minute by not at least attempting the SYG defense, I do not understand myself. I have only been speculating. He did not even let Airman Giles testify at his own hearing. The parents had been working with this attorney for over a year. They paid him a fortune.This is a guess that the attorney truly felt that arguing self defense by itself was sufficient. The investigating officer was in favor of recommending probation. I cannot logically explain why this young decent man who has served our country honorably has been placed behind bars for 25 years and someone like GZ is free.

There was a shooting yesterday in Down Town Los Angeles and yet once again its an unarmed man. upon review of the video I have no idea how they are going to claim this was justified the entire scene from start to finish looked like an Ambush.
there were about 9 police officers apprehending two individuals the victim that was shot had four officers each of them had one of his limbs meaning he was laying down and each officer had a leg or an arm in their hand.

And yet they shoot this man and claim he went for an officers gun, look at the commotion when watching the video there is so much going on that its very possible that one of the other officers may have made contact with another officers weapon and that officer assumed it was the suspect going for his gun.

but again this is a homeless man who is mentally ill I am sure with the recent trend we have seen nothing will happen. we are going to continue to see more and more of cases like this because every time something like this happens and there are no consequences handed down it empowers police to continue doing this.

Sure the LAPD will conduct an un biased investigation they did that with Christopher Dorner stating that after they burned him alive they identified him because he had his wallet, amazing how that suddenly became fire proof everything in that cabin was reduced to ashes yet his wallet survived?

Here is the kicker though, his wallet was turned in near the US Mexico Border two weeks earlier how is it possible he got his wallet back?

Then you have the guns they claimed Dorner had in his possession none of them showed any signs of being burned the straps were as good as new, and ohh yea lets not forget he was wearing caviler and that Law enforcement claims that he took his own life siting the single gun shot heard over the radio funny thing is Dorners pistol had a silencer on it.

in addition they also confirmed his identity through dental records, remember the caviler they said he was wearing? how did he take his life if he had that on? only one way to do that which would be to shoot himself from under his chin but then how would they identify him through dental records of that was the case?

Dorner was exposing corrupt cops, we don’t have a shred of proof he murdered the two they said he did, what we do have is evidence that Law Enforcement never intended for him to come out of this alive evidence in that is as followed.

Two innocent civilians were shot at by law enforcement in which they looked nothing like Dorner did drive not even the same make and model Dorner was known to drive

and further more the alleged hostages why didn’t he kill them? and at what point did anybody see any negotiation attempt by Law Enforcement while Dorner was in that cabin?
you didn’t all you saw was the FAA ordered new choppers to cut off the live feed so that Law Enforcement could proceed in burning this man alive as evidenced by the radio recordings…. Burn that Mother F***er

scrodriguez……one of the things I heard was it appeared that one of the cops was wearing a body camera…..have you heard anything about that locally? By the time the story gets here it is extremely short. I did view the video and it’s hard to really tell what was happening except that he was on the ground along with about 2 officers and one standing.

Yes there were two that had on cameras but those cameras are usually positioned at the chest area so chances if seeing this man reach for the gun we wont see it on that footage
I believe its highly possible that with all the officers involved all of the commotion that it was another officer who came in contact with the gun holstered on the other officers belt leading him to believe the suspect reached for the gun.
I don’t see how he did though four officers had this man by each limb…

Michael Youlen stopped a driver in a Manassas apartment complex on a recent night and wrote the man a ticket for driving on a suspended license. With a badge on his chest and a gun on his hip, Youlen gave the driver a stern warning to stay off the road.

The stop was routine police work, except for one fact: Youlen is not a Manassas officer. The citation came courtesy of the private force he created that, until recently, he called the “Manassas Junction Police Department.”

He is its chief and sole officer.

He is a force of one.

And he is not alone. Like more and more Virginians, Youlen gained his police powers using a little-known provision of state law that allows private citizens to petition the courts for the authority to carry a gun, display a badge and make arrests. The number of “special conservators of the peace” — or SCOPs, as they are known — has doubled in Virginia over the past decade to roughly 750, according to state records.

I almost LMAO!! a one man force. he’s the self appointed chief of his own self! what a dummy! what a typical Zimmerman! I’m surprised zimmer couldn’t even do that when he tried for a position and was denied. its likely too late for him now too since he’s likely not welcome in VA, not killing an innocent boy, but for his threats & harassment of ‘real’ white ppl since his kangaroo court.

I haven’t been to Manassas but I assume its mostly white and pretty hickish. I don’t know anyone who’d bother to go petition a court for a badge so they can run around for free and ticket ppl and sternly warn them to stay off the road! my god what a dummy!

Yahtzeebutterfly,
Okay. I went back to that portion of the video again. He begins using the personal pronoun “I” but then changes to use “young man” as if speaking about Trayvon rather than as Trayvon.

For synopsis sake, let’s say that those were Trayvon’s thoughts, and put ourselves in his shoes. The actor spoke of not wearing a hoodie again unless it was bullet proof. For Trayvon, that would have been the entire hoodie and not just the hood portion.

Shannon, thanks for sharing it. I watched it but want to watch it again. The last segment of what didn’t happen is pretty powerful. I also noticed how the producer used the voice of the actor playing Trayvon as the voice screaming for help.

the voice screaming for help tells the entire story for me…..simple common sense dictates which person would be screaming for help at that time and the screams show clearly that person feared for their very LIFE, the person holding the gun taking aim at the center of the chest with their finger on the trigger would they be screaming for help it total fear for their life? or would the person looking into the barrel seeing it pointed at their chest be the one that is screaming for their life? also the video shows clearly the angle of the entrance wound came from straight on something the video showed could NOT happen as zman claimed the angle of the shot in the video was clearly UP through the body at an angle.

because she threw the trial…..she and the rest understood the total corruption in that police department, to convict fogen she would have had to expose that corruption…..so they allowed perjury from officers to pass without comment.

Bill,
Well, I had written a response and suddenly, it disappeared. LOL!

It was not so much officer perjury at trial as it was omissions. For example, Serino was not questioned about the Capias. There was no witness to debris finding. Monalo testified that Zimmerman threw his cell phone to the ground when seeing the arriving officer, but he was not asked if he saw Zimmerman also drop his keys. No officer testified of picking up Zimmerman’s cell phone and while there was a photo of the keys on the ground, it did not include Zimmerman’s cell phone.

Why is that important? Because the defense used the keys to say that is where the altercation began. Yet, not once did Zimmerman, in any of his statements, say when he dropped the keys. He would have people assume that after being hit in the nose, that he dropped his keys but held on to the flashlight as he stumbled 40 feet.

Remember Anita Smithey of Oviedo, Florida who killed her husband and claimed self-defense? She was found guilty of 2nd degree murder and last month, Judge Lester sentenced her to 40 years. Her attorneys have filed an appeal. She has been retained at the county jail and is scheduled to go to the women’s prison.

Monday, she appeared in court to ask that she be released on bond pending appeal. Prosecutors argued that is unlikely her conviction will be reversed on appeal because Smithey admitted to killing her husband. Judge Lester denied her motion.